So, it's taken me a while but, recently, I finally sat down and gave Volume 1 a complete read from start to finish.
The Prologue for
Fight! Super Robot Life-Form Transformers basically just recaps the backstory given in the first episode of the cartoon: The war on Cybertron between the Autobots and Decepticons, and their coming to Earth aboard the Ark after needing to find new energy sources.
FSRLFTF Chapter 1 marks the actual first fictional appearance of Menasor in Japan, since "The Key to Vector Sigma" didn't air in Japan until May 1986, while this story came out in April. This is why Trailbreaker reacts surprised to see that Menasor is a combiner made up of individual vehicle Transformers. Of course, since Trailbreaker didn't appear in "The Key to Vector Sigma", one could theoretically place this story immediately after that two-parter but before Trailbreaker's next cartoon appearance in "Cosmic Rust" (which applies for both the American and Japanese episode orders).
Chapter 2 is a pretty simple story with not much to note about it. Though, in one scene, the Autobots and Decepticons are locked in battle in an Arizona desert. Apparently, this has led some to think that the Ark is located in that state, having interpreted this battle to be at the Ark when there's no reason to come to think that.
Chapter 3 sees the beginning of the Autobots' construction of Metroplex, leading up to the Scramble City episode, even though it was released back in the same month as Chapter 1, but also before "The Key to Vector Sigma" aired in Japan, so its release was chronologically premature anyway.
This chapter also has a neat bit of continuity with something that wouldn't happen until later in The Headmasters cartoon. In this chapter, Megatron reveals to the rest of his troops that his true ambition of conquering Earth is to convert each of its continents into robotic bases and, ultimately, transform the whole planet into a giant robot. This goal of his would later resurface in the aforementioned cartoon in which he (as Galvatron) desired to merge himself with the Earth to become the planetary robot Grand Galvatron.
This story also has a typo/mistranslation in which "Scrumbuster" is spelled as "Scrambuster".
Now, Chapter 4 is a big one. While it may seem like just another simple story, it actually seems to have had a heavy influence on the Car Robots cartoon.
The story opens with the Autobots having established a new base located in Japan. This base is hidden underground, accessible through secret entrances hidden within tall parking garage complexes. It its interior walls are covered in monitor screens and its floors are adorned with human-scaled computer button consoles and workstations.
Sound familiar?
While not an
exact match in artwork, the resemblance between the two in both concept and design aesthetic remarkably uncanny. The cartoon version would merely be a simplification of the manga's more detailed artwork.
Viz Media translation in the first pic, old fan translation in the second and third picsThe similarities continue with the presentation of the Autobot Road, a vast underground roadway system built 2500 meters below the Earth's surface that connects the Japanese base to many other locations around the world. This is extremely similar in concept to the Cybertron Net from Car Robots. Their names are even similar enough since the Autobot Road is actually named the "Cybertron Road" in Japanese.
However, despite this similarity, I do not believe the two to be the same thing since the Cybertron Road is said to be only 2500 meters below the surface, which would place it within the Earth's crust. Meanwhile, the first episode of Car Robots states that the Cybertron Net runs through Earth's mantle.
The Earth's crust is about 70 kilometers deep. The Cybertron Road being 2500 meters underground would only be 2.5 kilometers down. Whereas the Cybertron Net being inside the mantle would put it
way down far below where the Cybertron Road would be.
Plus, Episode 21 of Car Robots also has Build Boy confirm that he and the other Buildmasters are the ones who built the Cybertron Net in the first place, and they didn't come to Earth until 2000, when the FSRLFTF manga is set during the late 1980s.
Though, it is still possible that the Buildmasters could have used the Cybertron Road as a springboard for the Cybertron Net, and simply incorporated the former into the latter when they built the Cybertron Net.
Nevertheless, I do remain convinced that the Japanese base seen in this story would go on to become the same one used by Fire Convoy's team in Car Robots over a decade later.
Also, there is another typo/mistranslation in which Tracks's name is written as "Trucks".
Anyway, Chapter 5 is mostly just a toy commercial for the four combiner teams, having them battle each other at a baseball stadium. Kenji is also in attendance with a lady friend of his, seemingly on a date together despite their both still being elementary school children.
Chapter 7 features more build up to Scramble City, with Trypticon now online and fully functional while Metroplex isn't quite ready yet, requiring Hound and Perceptor to trick him with a massive hologram of Metroplex. Trypticon also doesn't recognize Metroplex when he sees the hologram, so this is indeed set before Scramble City.
Chapter 7 continues to show just how guilible humanity is in the G1 cartoon universe since they are so easily led to believe that the Autobots are evil by the Stunticons and Onslaught wearing fake Autobot symbols and Rumble and Frenzy spreading propaganda while dressed in black KKK costumes.
I am not kidding.
It is absolutely as uncomfortable a read as it sounds.
Also, Kenji's supposed girlfriend from Chapter 5 is seen here again as a classmate of his.
Chapter 8, sadly, isn't much better since this is the one with the Decepticons' absolutely bonkers plan of creating a dog from advanced Decepticon technology, and when it escapes it ends up dying from its injuries when it uses the last of its power to enhance the Autobot Minibots.
Yep. That is a thing that happened.
Moving on, Chapter 1 of
The Story of the Super Robot Life-Forms: The Transformers brings the setting to the year 2010, the year in which the Japanese dub of G1 season 3 took place, creating a five-year gap between the movie and those episodes that exists only in the Japanese version.
It's a simple story of Rodimus Prime leading the Autobots on a mission to rescue some humans whose shuttle is captured by the Decepticons' massive ship-eating vessel.
Of note is that, at the end of the story, among the humans rescued by the Autobots are two children who resemble younger versions of Kenji and his lady friend from the FSRLFTF manga. Possible offspring of theirs, perhaps?
Chapter 2 is the one with all the Megatron clones controlled by Galvatron. This story directly mentions the aforementioned 5-year gap and sees the Autobots still not fully aware of the fact that Galvatron was rebuilt from Megatron. Thus, I'd wager that this story would come pretty early in the Season 3 episodes, not too long after the "Five Faces of Darkness" five-parter (and would thus put the first chapter in that time as well).
Chapter 3 is just a big toy commercial for Metroplex and Trypticon, having them fight each other and show off Scamper, Full-Tilt, Brunt, and Sixgun. Though, since Trypticon is even in this story at all places it after "Thief in the Night", since that episode revealed that Trypticon was not destroyed at the end of "Five Face of Darkness", as the Autobots had originally believed in that episode.
Chapter 4 is the one with Gilthor (pronounced like "gill-tor"), the Optimus/Megatron fusion robot created by the Quintessons and possessed by Starscream's ghost. It's just big battle with him, Galvatron, and Rodimus. The fact that it's Starscream possessing Gilthor requires this story to come between "Starscream's Ghost" (when he is first discovered as a ghost) and "Ghost in the Machine" (when he gets a new body from Unicron and is last known by anyone to still have that body at the end).
Chapter 5 features a great big battle on Planet Feminia, which would later reappear in both the single episode and single manga chapter of Transformers: Zone. Predaking gets the main spotlight here, with Sky Lynx too busy fighting Decepticon on Earth over New York City to come fight him. So, it's the Omnibots who make a rare appearance in 1980s fiction and use the old "Snowspeeders vs. AT-AT" method to trip up Predaking.
The last three stories in this volume are from
The Great Transformers War. Chapter 1 features more Combiner advertisement for the main four Scramble City Combiners, but also foreshadows to the coming of both the Terrorcons and the Technobots.
However, this is actually a bit of a continuity error since it implies that both teams haven't been built yet and that Doctor Dalton of the planet Elan will be the one to create the Technobots. This is because the episode "Grimlock's New Brain" had not yet aired in Japan at the time of this story's production, so that episode's events may not have yet been known about at the time.
Chapter 2 thus attempts to retcon the first chapter by instead saying that Dalton merely
upgraded the Technobots rather than created them. Grimlock is also present in this story to further strengthen this story's connection with the cartoon. So, Chapters 1 and 2 would both fit coming around the time of "Grimlock's New Brain", despite the little hiccup in Chapter 1.
Finally, Chapter 3 is actually a prologue for the new cartoon, The Headmasters. Optimus Prime is back from the dead and the Autobot Headmasters are chasing the Decepticon Targetmasters as the latter are on their way to join up with Galvatron, as seen at the very beginning of that series' first episode.
All in all, I'm glad to finally have these stories officially available in English, but a few curious oddities in the translation remain:
- Page 52: The humans who work at the Autobots' secret Japanese base are said to be robots who turn into humans (they're not Pretenders since that gimmick didn't exist yet).
- Page 138: Trypticon's dino mode, instead of his base mode, is stated to be his Dinobase mode
- Page 186: The narration bubbles are written as though one of the characters is speaking them as dialogue rather than their merely being expositional narration to establish the change in scene.
Among many other oddities.
I'd have to go through this volume with a fine-toothed comb to point out all of these, but that's a level of work that I presently don't feel like doing.
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